Judge Daniel M. Crowley, Case Number: 20STCV20443, Date: 2024-11-21 Tentative Ruling

All parties are urged to meet and confer with all parties concerning this tentative ruling to see if they can reach an agreed-upon resolution of their matter.  If you are able to reach an agreement, please notify the courtroom staff in advance of the hearing if you wish to submit on the tentative ruling rather than argue the motion by notifying the court by e-mailing the court at: SMCDEPT71@lacourt.org. Do not click on the email address, either copy and paste it or type it into your email. Include the word "SUBMITS" in all caps and the Case Number in the Subject line. In the body of the email, please provide the date and time of the hearing, your name, your contact information, the party you represent, and whether that party is a plaintiff, defendant, cross-complainant, cross-defendant, claimant, intervenor, or non-party, etc.

            Please be advised that if you submit on the tentative and elect not to appear at the hearing, the opposing party may still appear at the hearing and argue the matter, and the court could change its tentative based upon the argument.  Unless you receive a submission from all other parties in the matter, you should assume that others might appear at the hearing to argue. If you submit, but still intend to appear, include the words "SUBMITS, BUT WILL APPEAR" in the Subject line.

            If you elect to argue your matter, you are urged to do so remotely, via Court-Connect. If the moving party fails to appear and/or submit to the Court’s tentative ruling, the Court will take the matter off calendar.

            Note that once the Court has issued a tentative, the Court has the inherent authority not to allow the withdrawal of a motion and to adopt the tentative ruling as the order of the court.

If you submitted a courtesy copy of your papers containing media (such as a DVD or thumb drive), unless you request the return of the media in your papers, the court will destroy it following the hearing of your matter.

Defendant Slurry Explosive Corporation’s motion to deem the truth of the matters admitted and the genuineness of the documents specified therein in Defendant Slurry Explosive Corporation’s Request for Admissions (Set One) served on Plaintiff Craig Steven Roberts is denied as moot.

Defendant Slurry Explosive Corporation’s request for sanctions against Plaintiff Craig Steven Roberts is denied.

Having reviewed Moving Defendant’s Motion to Deem Admitted the RFAs to Craig, the Court rules as follows.

On July 5, 2024, Moving Defendant served RFA (Set One) on Craig. (Decl. of Sologub ¶2, Exh. A.) Craig’s written responses were due no later than August 6, 2024. Moving Defendant now moves to deem admitted the RFAs.

Moving Defendant’s motion to deem the truth of the matters specified in its RFA to Craig and the genuineness of all documents specified therein is denied as moot on the basis Craig served responses to the RFAs on November 7, 2024. (Decl. of Brust ¶7, Exh. A.)[1]

Moving Defendant requests monetary sanctions totaling $1,270.00. Moving Defendant’s notice of motion fails to identify against whom sanctions are sought or to specify the statute authorizing the sanctions, such that a grant of sanctions would deprive Craig of due process. (Code of Civil Procedure section 2023.040.) Therefore, the Court denies the request for sanctions.

Hon. Daniel M. Crowley

Judge of the Superior Court

[1] The Court notes Plaintiff’s opposition is labeled on the docket at “Memorandum of Points and Authorities” and does not provide the Court notice that the filing is indeed the Plaintiff’s Opposition to Slurry Explosive Corporation’s Motion to Deem RFAs Admitted. Plaintiff’s counsel is advised to remedy this issue in future filings before this Court, as this Court has already addressed this issue with Metzger Law Group on at least one prior occasion. Continuing the practice of filing documents with ambiguous titles creates the potential of this Court not reviewing Plaintiff’s improperly labeled filings.